Uncle Chew and his "Cili Padi"

When I was little, well actually even when I wasn't very little, our neighbour Uncle Chew used to call me Cili Padi, which translates to those little red chilli peppers. I dont exactly know why, maybe I was such a feisty lil brat. Tonight, as promised, I had a little house-warming dinner at my place with what little friends I had in Sydney. Spent the day before taking the train to Eastwood, 4 train stops away from Rhodes, where there are alot of asian chinese shops. Was not my day cos I had to brave the very rare torrential rain in my measly 'el-cheapo' 3 dollar umbrella whilst carrying a sackful of noodles, tofu and such. Also didnt expect my golden moon-man shoes to have miniscule decorative holes in them!! Needless to say, I sploshed my way around in wet socks all the way home.

On the menu for tonight, Mee Jawa, my very favorite dish well made by granny. Got her recipe and everything went fine, although i couldnt find Chilli boh so i had to blend my own fresh chillies. In the end, the soup I made was wayyyy too spicy, I almost killed my friends! Was too busy laughing and feeling bad I forgot to take pictures of they bewildered gobsmacked faces. To me, I give it an honest 60% (which is a bad grade for ms. i-want-to-be-perfect) but beggars cant be choosers and despite the whopping hotness, i still enjoyed my first attempt at mee jawa.

Now, got lots of leftovers for the rest of this weekend, kick back, and sip on some leftover alcohol. ahhhh......

Nudies

I bet there are alot of Aussie men and women who love to be nudies..be it on Bondi Beach or next to my pool. Cant say its a pleasant sight, unless you have 5% body fat and your flesh doesn't flop under your weight lying down. The nudies I wanna talk about are Nude mice, or scientifically nomenclatured as nu-/nu- athymic mice. These mice are "special" because they're genetically altered to lack the FOX1 gene, causing them to develop without a thymus gland. The thymus is responsible for generating T lymphocytes, essential soldiers in our immune system. That being said, these mice are extremely fragile and live their entirely lives in sterile environments. Because they have a compromised immune system, it allows us weird science geeks to implant human tumours to study their effects in the animal. Sounds cruel, but would you rather we use human test subjects? I only console myself in tha fact that every life lost adds to painting a bigger picture to understanding human cancer biology. I dont actually know why they're hairless, thought I've noticed that they sprout some sparse facial hair at about 6 weeks old.

"Howdy mate, I love my cage and my industrially processed food. Laine tries to be nice to us, I'll tell the rest not to bite" - Mouse no. 1.2.11 (not actual photo)

Ive started my work with them for about 2 weeks now, and will be working with them for the next 3 years. As important as they are for cancer research, they indeniably would have to be sacrificed at the end of experimentation, a sad ending for such an adorable creature. I've decided not to name individuals, so as to minimise the feeling of attachment to them. Having previously owned hamsters and guinea pigs, you can understand my fondness for these lil things. I never expected it to be so hard to euthanize them, despite having done so with rats back at Monash.


With every prayer before they die, I hope they involuntary involvement in my work brings some meaningful progress to human health and disease. If thats any consolation, Mom has suggested I go vegetarian once a week , great idea I must say. Maybe will save 10 chickens/yr.